Monday, November 17, 2008

So... after nearly 15 years of working at my day job solely on PCs, we've finally made the move to Macs. (And there was much rejoicing.) I have the same programs for both (and I should mention that I've done all my studio work on a Mac!) but the little things that make a program customized - the settings - were going to be time-consuming to duplicate. Most of this is applicable for copying settings between any two computers - I didn't know how to do this before today, but it works! This saved me so much time today.

PDF settings
I have special PDF settings that I've made myself for sending things to the printer with bleeds and cropmarks. Check this out: search on your own computer for files named "joboptions". Copy them to the other computer, then install them. Open Indesign, and then choose Adobe PDF Presets/Define. Then choose Load and load your job option file. Done!

Dreamweaver settings
All the instructions are here. If you're the only one using your computer, you want "Back up my settings"; it copies the passwords too. Then on the other computer, go to "Manage Sites" and choose "Import." Just note that each import has 2 parts, the first asks you to import the .ste file, and the second asks you where the local files are. I ♥ this tip.

Fonts
Guess what? True type fonts work on the Mac! Just copy them from your Windows/Fonts on your PC into Library/Fonts on the Mac. The only fonts I'm having a problem with are Postscript fonts; ones that I had to install through ATM aren't crossing over. But the amount of those fonts are very small compared to the fonts I do already have (and use more frequently).

Sorry if this is stuff you already knew, but it saved me a huge hunk of time this morning! Hope someone else can find it useful and spend less time on file management and more time creating!